6 ms·

We shall demand legislation with enforces that phones and other devices can be used like normal computers. Ie demand open boot loaders, open specs so that open

by acd 4y ago

We shall demand legislation with enforces that phones and other devices can be used like normal computers. Ie demand open boot loaders, open specs so that open source software can run well on phone devices. If we can run open source software the length the devices lifetime last will be greatly extended. This will minimize electronic waste and e-waste pollution. Its essential that all electronic devices can run open source software. That boot loaders and access to devices are not monopolized or crippled by device vendors. Vendors have one main interest to is to sell new devices to consumers and maximize profit. Consumers and the government have different intrest in that devices last longer so we minimize the impact on the environment.

anonuser123456 4y ago
No thanks. I’m happy with my iPhone as is.
- dehrmann 4y ago
  Didn't Apple just release an patch that covered the 5S? The phone's 9 years old, now. An open bootloader is a different story, but so far, Apple's delivered on long-term support.
  - franga2000 4y ago
    That's a great to hear, but unfortunately nobody else is doing it and Apple does so many other bad things to more than make up for that from an environmental pov.
- Farbklex 4y ago
  And you can continue using it as is. But let the rest of us have full access to the hardware to extend its capabilities and lifetime.
- franga2000 4y ago
  Device reusability is an environmental issue, so your happiness is utterly irrelevant here. Making devices (or their parts) easy to keep using or repurpose means fewer need to be created and fewer end up in the landfill.
  - atomicUpdate 4y ago
    > an environmental issue, so your happiness is utterly irrelevant here Ah, the insanity of the progressive left. The changes you’re describing aren’t free and would have minuscule benefit overall. Instead, they would just increase prices for everyone else without any tangible benefit. Yes, smartphones are more capable than they were. No, people aren’t going to fill up racks with them in lieu of actual desktop hardware. All of the infrastructure required to ice and maintain an old phone isn’t worth the effort and high failure rates. OSS firmware doesn’t solve those issues.
  - anonuser123456 4y ago
    Pigouvian taxes.
    - franga2000 4y ago
      Right, because that has worked perfectly every time so far... 1. The added cost will simply be passed down to the consumer. Since a perfect alternative doesn't exist and the market isn't free anyways, customers won't switch. And since the number of customers stays the same, profits stay the same, so the producer won't change. 2. The money from the tax won't actually solve the problem. Perfectly usable electronics will still be discarded, landfills will still fill and new devices will still be unnecessarily manufactured. The harm done is the same, only now the government has some extra change.
- Steltek 4y ago
  This perspective has a huge following on Hacker News and it's baffling. This site celebrates clever reuse of technology, creative thinking, and open source. But when Apple comes up, some people close down completely and the sharply defined cognitive dissonance looks very cult-like.
  - marcellus23 4y ago
    HN consists of multiple people who can each have different opinions. It's not a single person that simultaneously holds anti-closed-source and pro-Apple mindsets. A small number of people here might seem to, but I bet if you asked them to explain their position, it would make sense according to their worldview.
  - anonuser123456 4y ago
    I like using what Apple builds and I don't like forcing people to operate by coercion. Apple builds and sells a product. If you don't like it... use something else. As a customer would I personally put pressure on them? Sure. But the authoritarian coercive approach proposed by some is harmful at best. If believing in freedom is a cult, count me in.
    - fatneckbeard 4y ago
      apple has acted against principles of free speech quite often.
pabs3 4y ago
I note that there are a lot of exploits that enable replacement of proprietary firmware and operating systems: https://wiki.debian.org/Exploits https://wiki.debian.org/Exploits
madduci 4y ago
This would be great also with MacBook with newer M1/M2 chips, instead of throwing then away because they're locked
mrjin 4y ago
Come on, they don't even make phones with user replaceable batteries anymore, some even caught red-handed deliberately slowing down old devices which were actually perfectly fine. The reason behind all those malicious behaviors is simple: user maintainable and repurpose-able devices are bad for business. I don't believe governments are not aware of that, but nonetheless it still happened, why?
- pmontra 4y ago
  Formally my Samsung A40 has no user replaceable battery. Actually you can find plenty of videos on YouTube that explain how to dissect that phone and replace almost everything. I don't trust myself to replace the screen but I replaced the camera after the n-th crash on the floor (20 Euros) and the battery after 3.5 years (40 Euros). All it takes is a flat piece of plastic to open the frame and glue to close it again. Was it better when that operation was a matter of 5 seconds? Yes.
  - kgwxd 4y ago
    I’ve replaced the screen and battery on 2 different iDevices, the scary amount of heat generated by both have completely turned me off to even trying. They absolutely would have exploded at some point.
  - mrjin 4y ago
    Now almost everything is glued on. Even with proper tools, opening without damaging is almost impossible.
- mackrevinack 4y ago
  most of the use cases i can think of would have the phone plugged in somewhere permanently, digital photo frame, home assistant controller etc, so whether the battery is worn out wouldnt matter so much
  - the_snooze 4y ago
    >whether the battery is worn out wouldnt matter so much Old phone batteries bloat up and become fire hazards. Ideally, phones could run permanentaly plugged in with the battery removed, but from my experience, they won't even power on without a battery present.
kmlx 4y ago
> If we can run open source software the length the devices lifetime last will be greatly extended. This will minimize electronic waste and e-waste pollution. i think you are overestimating the impact of such legislation. compare how many phones are sold each year with how big the open source community is, then how many devices will actually be used by that community after they’re no longer used by their initial owner. i fear the numbers are so small they won’t even register.
- LBJsPNS 4y ago
  All the more reason to require open boot loaders and the like. If the community is that small, it will minimally affect the ability of manufacturers to move new product. At least at first, until people find out they can do more with an old phone than throw it in a drawer.
  - jeroenhd 4y ago
    You need more than bootloaders. You need drivers compatible with somewhat maintained kernels too. My phone's bootloader is unlocked and if I fix my broken USB port I could flash any Linux system onto it, but Linux has no drivers for most of the phone's hardware. The WiFi and Bluetooth probably won't work and the GPU probably won't be doing anything useful and the camera or fingerprint scanner will never in a million years perform like they do on Android. You can't really continuously operate a smartphone without disconnecting the battery or it will swell up and die. Doing so with this phone will require careful removal of both the screen and the back plate with heated pads, suction cups, spudgers, and lots of tiny screws. I may one day get around to replacing the battery and bad USB board, but if I do so it'll take at least a day of YouTube-guided work, maybe more. Then I'm still stuck with an outdated version of Android or an unofficial LineageOS fork by Some Guy because projects like postmarketOS have so far given up on my device (one maintainer broke their phone, the other gave up "for their sanity"). Until parties like Qualcom start working with the Linux kernel instead of against it, and Apple opens up their bootloaders, I don't expect these devices to be usable for anyone for the next couple of years. It sounds quite enticing to have an ARM cluster of relatively quick trashed phones, but the work you need to put into each phone separately to get it to work just isn't worth it.
forevergreenyon 4y ago
but where's the money in doing this? no money, no nothing.
- daveguy 4y ago
  Legislation is the key word here.
  - forevergreenyon 4y ago
    senators also use money, lots of it, way more than average. so my question is still valid
    - daveguy 4y ago
      Fair enough.

by acd 4y ago

anonuser123456 4y ago

No thanks. I’m happy with my iPhone as is.

dehrmann 4y ago
Didn't Apple just release an patch that covered the 5S? The phone's 9 years old, now. An open bootloader is a different story, but so far, Apple's delivered on long-term support.
- franga2000 4y ago
  That's a great to hear, but unfortunately nobody else is doing it and Apple does so many other bad things to more than make up for that from an environmental pov.
Farbklex 4y ago
And you can continue using it as is. But let the rest of us have full access to the hardware to extend its capabilities and lifetime.
franga2000 4y ago
Device reusability is an environmental issue, so your happiness is utterly irrelevant here. Making devices (or their parts) easy to keep using or repurpose means fewer need to be created and fewer end up in the landfill.
- atomicUpdate 4y ago
  > an environmental issue, so your happiness is utterly irrelevant here Ah, the insanity of the progressive left. The changes you’re describing aren’t free and would have minuscule benefit overall. Instead, they would just increase prices for everyone else without any tangible benefit. Yes, smartphones are more capable than they were. No, people aren’t going to fill up racks with them in lieu of actual desktop hardware. All of the infrastructure required to ice and maintain an old phone isn’t worth the effort and high failure rates. OSS firmware doesn’t solve those issues.
- anonuser123456 4y ago
  Pigouvian taxes.
  - franga2000 4y ago
    Right, because that has worked perfectly every time so far... 1. The added cost will simply be passed down to the consumer. Since a perfect alternative doesn't exist and the market isn't free anyways, customers won't switch. And since the number of customers stays the same, profits stay the same, so the producer won't change. 2. The money from the tax won't actually solve the problem. Perfectly usable electronics will still be discarded, landfills will still fill and new devices will still be unnecessarily manufactured. The harm done is the same, only now the government has some extra change.
Steltek 4y ago
This perspective has a huge following on Hacker News and it's baffling. This site celebrates clever reuse of technology, creative thinking, and open source. But when Apple comes up, some people close down completely and the sharply defined cognitive dissonance looks very cult-like.
- marcellus23 4y ago
  HN consists of multiple people who can each have different opinions. It's not a single person that simultaneously holds anti-closed-source and pro-Apple mindsets. A small number of people here might seem to, but I bet if you asked them to explain their position, it would make sense according to their worldview.
- anonuser123456 4y ago
  I like using what Apple builds and I don't like forcing people to operate by coercion. Apple builds and sells a product. If you don't like it... use something else. As a customer would I personally put pressure on them? Sure. But the authoritarian coercive approach proposed by some is harmful at best. If believing in freedom is a cult, count me in.
  - fatneckbeard 4y ago
    apple has acted against principles of free speech quite often.

pabs3 4y ago

I note that there are a lot of exploits that enable replacement of proprietary firmware and operating systems: https://wiki.debian.org/Exploits https://wiki.debian.org/Exploits

madduci 4y ago

This would be great also with MacBook with newer M1/M2 chips, instead of throwing then away because they're locked

mrjin 4y ago

Come on, they don't even make phones with user replaceable batteries anymore, some even caught red-handed deliberately slowing down old devices which were actually perfectly fine. The reason behind all those malicious behaviors is simple: user maintainable and repurpose-able devices are bad for business. I don't believe governments are not aware of that, but nonetheless it still happened, why?

pmontra 4y ago
Formally my Samsung A40 has no user replaceable battery. Actually you can find plenty of videos on YouTube that explain how to dissect that phone and replace almost everything. I don't trust myself to replace the screen but I replaced the camera after the n-th crash on the floor (20 Euros) and the battery after 3.5 years (40 Euros). All it takes is a flat piece of plastic to open the frame and glue to close it again. Was it better when that operation was a matter of 5 seconds? Yes.
- kgwxd 4y ago
  I’ve replaced the screen and battery on 2 different iDevices, the scary amount of heat generated by both have completely turned me off to even trying. They absolutely would have exploded at some point.
- mrjin 4y ago
  Now almost everything is glued on. Even with proper tools, opening without damaging is almost impossible.
mackrevinack 4y ago
most of the use cases i can think of would have the phone plugged in somewhere permanently, digital photo frame, home assistant controller etc, so whether the battery is worn out wouldnt matter so much
- the_snooze 4y ago
  >whether the battery is worn out wouldnt matter so much Old phone batteries bloat up and become fire hazards. Ideally, phones could run permanentaly plugged in with the battery removed, but from my experience, they won't even power on without a battery present.

kmlx 4y ago

> If we can run open source software the length the devices lifetime last will be greatly extended. This will minimize electronic waste and e-waste pollution. i think you are overestimating the impact of such legislation. compare how many phones are sold each year with how big the open source community is, then how many devices will actually be used by that community after they’re no longer used by their initial owner. i fear the numbers are so small they won’t even register.

LBJsPNS 4y ago
All the more reason to require open boot loaders and the like. If the community is that small, it will minimally affect the ability of manufacturers to move new product. At least at first, until people find out they can do more with an old phone than throw it in a drawer.
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  You need more than bootloaders. You need drivers compatible with somewhat maintained kernels too. My phone's bootloader is unlocked and if I fix my broken USB port I could flash any Linux system onto it, but Linux has no drivers for most of the phone's hardware. The WiFi and Bluetooth probably won't work and the GPU probably won't be doing anything useful and the camera or fingerprint scanner will never in a million years perform like they do on Android. You can't really continuously operate a smartphone without disconnecting the battery or it will swell up and die. Doing so with this phone will require careful removal of both the screen and the back plate with heated pads, suction cups, spudgers, and lots of tiny screws. I may one day get around to replacing the battery and bad USB board, but if I do so it'll take at least a day of YouTube-guided work, maybe more. Then I'm still stuck with an outdated version of Android or an unofficial LineageOS fork by Some Guy because projects like postmarketOS have so far given up on my device (one maintainer broke their phone, the other gave up "for their sanity"). Until parties like Qualcom start working with the Linux kernel instead of against it, and Apple opens up their bootloaders, I don't expect these devices to be usable for anyone for the next couple of years. It sounds quite enticing to have an ARM cluster of relatively quick trashed phones, but the work you need to put into each phone separately to get it to work just isn't worth it.

forevergreenyon 4y ago

but where's the money in doing this? no money, no nothing.

daveguy 4y ago
Legislation is the key word here.
- forevergreenyon 4y ago
  senators also use money, lots of it, way more than average. so my question is still valid
  - daveguy 4y ago
    Fair enough.